Thread: Project BC Rich Gunslinger - What wood is this? and suggestions on finish

Hi,

Your approach is good except you should sand it down to 320 grit before applying grain filler if you want a clear finish. The picture you showed is most likely to be stained on clear coat. The procedure you outlines is for a solid colour coat, not pure clear. This is how I would do it, its not the only way by the way:

Sand down from 120,180,240,320 until it is completely blemish free
Apply shellac (weak) to raise the grain can be wiped on generously
Sand with 320. make sure you sand all shellac if you want to stain
Stain with a dark tint (to enhance the grain lines).
Sand back until only the grain lines have a hint of stain
Stain again with your chosen "honey colour"
Apply shellac
Apply grainfiller (tinted to suit stained timber)
Sand grainfiller back
Apply grainfiller again
Sand grainfiller back
Apply Shellac
Apply sanding sealer/base
Apply topcoats
Sand and buff

If possible I would do some trials with the finish first, however you probably don't have any scrap to experiment with.

Hope this helps,

Peter

I'll have a stab at the timber.
Looks a little like poplar to me...I think...
Also looks a bit like ash...
Or alder (which is an ash anyway isn't it?)

No, I think its Alder.
Going on the age of the guitar and when it was released I would reckon Alder.
I think they were BC Rich's take on EVH frankenstrat. Hence the angled pups and the volume only controls.

Was it a maple or rosewood fingerbaord?
How many frets?

If it is alder, you'll need to spen a LOT of wuality time on your grain filler.

i reckon its a nice looking poplar
shouldnt really need grain fill
even alder wont need it
swamp ash will need a lot but i dont think its swamp ash

I'll third the poplar vote. It looks like it has that poplar greenish stain/tinge.
A great sounding timber IMO.

hi guys thanks for the replies

just to answer the post above.. maple 22fret fingerboard

i think its alder but not too sure .. (1987 model guitar)

either way it cant hurt to spend extra time on it anyway .. thanks for the step by step .. makes it a lot easier to see what i need to do in step form ..

Dead spit for liquid amber which is a maple I think, my tuppence worth of a guess.

There is always this too:
http://www.bcrich.com/gunslinger_retro.asp

Its alder on this site so...

Ir looks like poplat to me as well. Possibly alder, but I'd lean towards poplar in agreement with Pete Sharps - the green streaks.



With all due respect to petebrown, I think his process is a little more complicated than it needs to be. My $0.02 worth:
Sand out all blemishes with 80-100

Sand up to 150. Any further than that is somewhat wasted effort.

Raising the grain (whiskering) should be done with water. Shellac will seal the wood and deter the stain from taking. After it's raised, sand LIGHTLY with the last grit used to de-whisker the surface.

If you need to fill the grain, you can skip the whiskering/de-whiskering, but it needs to be done before staining so that the filler is stained as well. It does require two applications, though.

Stain/sand back/re-stain to your tastes.

Shellac is often used as a sanding sealer. If you use it, you don't need a separate sealer coat. If you use a "true" sanding sealer, you don't need the shellac coat. If you're finishing with lacquer, you don't need a sealer coat at all. Lacquer is it's own sealer. You can still use a sealer, but it isn't necessary with lacquer. For anything else, though, you'll need it.

Top coats & buffing. Advised: level with 320, then wet sand from 400 through 3000, then buff. The finish will be like glass.

ok coool .. So all this talk about shellac and grain fillers etc.. how do i apply them .. and the clear coat? is this from a can? or is this a brush on?

also i noticed talk about green in the grain .. i cant see any lol.. dunno if its my camera thats a bit dodgy or lighting .. but looking at the body i swear i cant see any green tinge or coloring???? LOL

Hands-down, the best advice advice I could ever give on anything related to wood finishing is to get Bob Flexner's book. It will explain everything you could possibly want to know, including how to apply fillers & sealers. I'm NOT blowing off your question - his book is just the best option for information. Plus, it's SOOOOO much better to have something in front of you than remembering it from an on-line forum.

ok EDIT .. i can see what u mean by the green tinge in the pic now ( in the horn areas???). Ok your gunna larf but the tv is in that direction and i believe thats reflection from the tv as it was on lol .. anything else is just pure dodgy camera and reflections. I have bad lighting in the house.. I was pretty sure these were Alder bodies for this model guitar but either way doesnt really matter .. i just wanted that honey colored look.

Now i saw mentioned "liquid amber" up above.. was this just a term or is it actually a product??

yes i know im a noob with silly questions.. im really surprised i got that guitar body looking the way it does now!!! pretty proud and i have the bug now! hehe

Yeah, I guess "liquid amber" sounds like a product but the word is a bastardisation of the name "liquidambar" and is a tree. It is also called sweetgum and is north american, I think.
I'll just check on wikipedia...

here, check this out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_amber

cya

Jason

ahhhhh i seeeee... *sigh* .. wouldnt it be nice to just be able to dipp it in liquid amber and pull it out and wallahhhh done!.

hehe

My english teacher at school, who was american by the way, - go figure - used to talk about liquid amber trees all the time, and we all thought he was talking about beer!?!?!

mmmm....liqud amber....